Ottoman suppression of the printing press is sometimes discussed by economists as a contributor to that empire's very long and slow decline:
The Ottomans regulated the printing press heavily
to prevent the loss it would have caused to the ruler’s net revenue by undermining the legitimacy
provided by religious authorities . . . Although the Ottomans were by no means alone in suppressing the
printing press, they sustained printing restrictions much longer than
any other ruler in Europe. Even after starting to relax restrictions
in 1726, they continued to heavily regulate the operation by granting
permission only to selected individuals, prohibiting publication in
religious subjects, and appointing a committee of scholars to review
and proofread contents for accuracy.
These economists consider the economic impact of this three-century ban to be substantial. In some very technical language, they argue:
The heavy regulation of the printing press is puzzling because the
Ottoman sultans could have raised the society's taxable surplus and
thus their own revenue by allowing it to operate freely. The new
technology would have raised the surplus directly through its effect
on the market for books and indirectly through positive externalities
that would have benefited other sectors. . . The indirect effects of
mass printing on the aggregate surplus would also have been positive
through economic development. As Buringh and van Zanden (2009: 409)
have argued, books were "strategic commodities [that were] a crucial
part of the information infrastructure and, in a way, the 'hardware'
which stored all ideas." In the same way, noting the high correlation
between reading ability and human capital formation, Baten and van
Zanden (2008) have recently used per capita book production as a
proxy variable for advanced literacy skills and found a significant
relationship between book production and the onset of modern economic
growth in Europe. By promoting mass printing technologies, the
Sultan would have enhanced the production and accumulation of economic
ideas that were essential for economic development and surplus
Obviously, there was more to the Ottoman Decline than the ban on the printing press. Read the Wikipedia article if you want a full rundown of theories. But there is no doubt that retarding the dissemination of literacy and scientific progress at the dawn of the modern era was a bad economic policy.
Source: "The Political Economy of Mass Printing:
Legitimacy, Revolt, and Technological Change in the Ottoman Empire."
Metin M. Coşgel, Thomas J. Miceli, and Jared Rubin.